One Month of Commissions

It’s been almost a month since I started taking commissions. I’ve done eleven commissions so far, and my… customers? clients? seem to have been really happy with the outcome. I also realized that it required more time and energy than I first expected, so I’ve now raised prices slightly. I think my prices are still pretty low though. But my goal is just to earn enough money to cover basic necessities and at least that’s not too far off.

As for the work itself, I find it really fun and rewarding. One thing I’ve learned is that, while one major part of it is to make pretty art, it’s equally important to figure out what the person paying for the art is looking for. This involves communication, sometimes a lot of it. It’s all fine to create a beautiful art piece, but if you draw a character in a way that doesn’t accurately reflect their personality, the client will probably be disappointed.

I’ve heard that some artists draw without communicating during the process, just handing over the finished work at the end, and I just can’t see how this won’t sometimes end with a lot of disappointment. Then again, I’m new to this line of work and should probably be humble and admit I don’t really know. I just do it the way that works for me.

Much of the work I’ve done the past month has involved character design, to various degrees. Most commissions have been for drawing people’s OC:s, with no visual reference (or visual references for parts of the character but not the whole).

I have drawn a dragon girl and a half-devil scorpion woman. I was provided with much more detailed descriptions of the latter compared to the former, but in both cases I had to be be creative about it. And I think that’s quite fun and interesting. Especially when I get something just right and the person is like, this is exactly how I imagined the character.

Something else I would like to do more, is headmate portraits. I think I’ll write a separate blog post about this. But I really think there is a lot of plural folks who would really benefit from having visual representation of themselves. But discussing such things with just anyone can be scary. So the fact that we’re plural too, and positive about it, could hopefully help people feel more comfortable.

So, yeah, if you’re an alter and you want a portrait done, you may consider talking to us about it. ^^

And just in general, I’m always looking for more work to do. I need to money. So this is a great way to support me while also getting a really cool drawing done!